Tipsheet

Pete Buttigieg Called to Abolish the Electoral College, There's Just One Problem

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  May 04, 2026 12:00 PM

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is being mocked across the internet after he suggested at a town hall event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that abolishing the Electoral College would have resulted in a Democrat in the White House. Many critics were quick to point out that in the 2024 election, Donald Trump won not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote in a landslide.

"But one thing that would make a huge difference is if we selected our president by letting the person who got the most votes actually take the office instead of the National Electoral College," the former Transportation Secretary said. "It would be a really good idea, because then any Democrat wanting to be president would have to campaign in Oklahoma. By the way, any Republican would have to campaign in Brooklyn. That would be good for our democracy."

However, even that scenario would not have changed the outcome for Buttigieg, as Donald Trump still won the 2024 election. Trump secured the Electoral College 312–226 over Kamala Harris and also won the popular vote, receiving more than 77 million votes to Harris’s 75 million.

Not only would Buttigieg’s solution not have resulted in a Democratic victory, but the Electoral College serves an important purpose in ensuring that the majority does not exert tyrannical control over the rest of the country. It ensures that major cities have an equal say in who should be president as rural areas.

While some argue the institution is undemocratic, that is precisely the point of the Electoral College system. If the Founding Fathers had intended a purely democratic system, they could have structured the country around a direct national popular vote. Instead, they deliberately built a system that blends democratic input with structural checks, designed to ensure that significant groups in the minority are still able to exert meaningful influence, and in some cases, prevent the will of the majority.

In more practical terms, it also helps prevent situations like in Virginia in recent weeks, where a slim statewide majority, just over 50 percent, can turn a purple state, into one represented by 10 Democrats and only a single Republican.